The modern Gaelic name of Govan is Baile a'Ghobhainn, "smith's homestead",
although there is no early attestation to this. I have suggested that this is
probably a back-formation, since in modern pronunciation this would become
Balgowan or Balgown, and since Govan appears to have been first and
foremost an ecclesiastical settlement rather than a secular one, I have
tentatively made the alternative suggestion that the name might derive from
a diminutive form of Gaelic gob, "beak, nose": gobán, "little
beak", referring to the promontory of raised ground on which the kirkyard
is situated, stretching into the flood plain of the Clyde[1].

More recently, however, Dr. T. O. Clancy[2] has raised the objection, correctly,
that Gaelic gob < IO gop, and that b < p should resist lenition,
whereas the earliest spellings ( Guuen, Guuan )[3] show clearly that in the
12th century the name was already pronounced much as it is now. Certainly
in West Scottish examples like Lochmaben, from *Cloch Maboin ( < *mapon ),
or Lochaber ( Adomnán's Stagnum Aporis ) intervocalic b < p
remains unlenited. Indeed, one modern Scots Gaelic dictionary has the word
gobán, with the meaning "little bill"[4]. Less serious is Dr. Clancy's
concern that OI o could give u by the 12 century. He himself suggests
exactly this sound change in an unstressed syllable. In fact, in West of
Scotland Scots dialect, Scots gob is frequently pronounced gub,
especially when used as a verb[5].

Dr. Clancy's ingenious alternative suggestion, however, is unsatisfactory. He
suggests that Govan could be from Brettonic go + bann, "small peak", referring
to the Doomster Hill. Certainly this would account for the lenition of
intervocalic b. Dr. Clancy suggests that the unstressed prefix go-,
"small", could locally have become gu- in the West of Scotland.

The fatal objection to this suggestion is that the first syllable gu- in Govan
is stressed, and clearly was stressed in the earliest recorded forms of the name.
The 12th century forms Guuen, Guuan show alternation of e and a in
the final syllable, indicating an unstressed final syllable with a neutral
vowel; the stress was at that time, as it is now, on the first syllable. The
examples adduced by Dr. Clancy, e.g., Godolphin, with unstressed first syllable,
show that this cannot be the origin of the name Govan. Where Brettonic
bann appears in final positions ( Dr. Clancy's example is Tal-y-fan ),
it is not unstressed as in Govan. It could be added that the Gaelic equivalent,
beann, does not become unstressed in final positions ( e.g., Morven
< mór bheann, or Cruachan Beann, Ben Cruachan ). If Gaelic
speakers had taken over British *go-bhann as *gu-bheann, they would have
stressed the second syllable; the twelfth-century spelling show that they
did not.

Also questionable is the suggestion that the supposed original *go-bhann,
"small peak", could refer to the Doomster Hill. I am only aware of one drawing
of this feature, made in 1758[6] ( Dr. Clancy refers to "drawings" in the plural,
so perhaps he knows of others ), which show it as a very low mound, flat-topped,
with a step in its side. This corresponds to the description given in 1795[7],
giving a height of 17 feet, a diameter at the base of 150 feet, and diameter
at the top of 102 feet. A description by the minister in 1840[8] is very similar:
a height of 17 feet and a diameter at the base of 150 feet. A flat-topped
mound 17 feet high could hardly be described as a "small peak".

The origins of the Doomster Hill are a mystery. In the 1830s digging within
the mound, at a depth of about 12 feet, uncovered "three or four rudely formed
planks of black oak", "small fragments of bones" and "a bed of what seemed to
be decayed bulrushes". It is not stated whether the bones were human. It is
hard to believe that human bones and a wooden coffin ( implying metal nails? )
could have survived in an earthen mound from prehistoric times; it may be that
they date from a time in the first half of the 19th century where there was a
small reservoir dug into the top of the hill. That is not to assert that the
Doomster Hill could not have been a prehistoric burial mound, but if it was
its burials were probably at ground level, and will not have disappeared
without record. The "Time Team"'s suggestions that it could be a 12th century
Norman motte may have certain attractions, but is not based on any very
certain evidence[9]. The continuing GUARD archaeological excavations may reveal
more about its origins[10].

This does not help us towards certainty about the origin of the name Govan.
Clearly Dr. Clancy's suggestion is untenable, because the stress is wrong
and because there is no local feature to which the name "little peak" could
have been applied: but if the name has nothing to do with non-existent
smithies or little peaks, what does it come from? The second syllable
certainly does look like the Gaelic diminutive -án, found locally
in names like Drymen ( = druimán, "little ridge" ), etc. If the
first element cannot be from gob < gop ( and intervocalic bh < b < p
does not occur, at least in this area ), then we must look for another
explanation.

I offer no certainties, but two possible avenues of exploration. Professor
Charles Thomas[11] pointed out the similarity of the name Gobanios, the
smith-god of the pre-Christian Celts. This is perhaps leading us back towards
Baile a'Ghobhainn, but by a different and more plausible route. Alternatively,
bearing in mind that all the evidence points to Govan's early importance being
chiefly as a site of high-status funerals and burials, one might consider a
possible connection with OI guba, "lamentation", "mourning at a funeral"[12].
Was Govan's original name, like the original significance of the site, "place
of funerals"?

The distribution evidence for mottes in the area, showing a gap in the area
south-west of Glasgow, is presented in "Atlas of Scottish History to 1707",
ed. P. McNeill and H. MacQueen ( 1996 ), p.430. The possibility that the
original caput of the lordship of Crookston could have been at Govan
cannot be ignored.